Major teacher evaluation, pay reform come to Bexar County

Updated 9:08 am, Sunday, August 18, 2013

Courtney Williams, a fourth grade teacher at Somerset Elementary School, puts up decorations in her classroom preparing for the first day of school.

Courtney Williams, a fourth grade teacher at Somerset Elementary School, puts up decorations in her classroom preparing for the first day of school.

Photo: Bob Owen / San Antonio Express-News

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LaRee Harrell, (cq) a second year teacher at Somerset Elementary School teaching 4th grade this year, looks through books as she sets up her in-classroom library. Somerset ISD has implemented a revolutionary new teacher pay system based on their performance including test scores and classroom observations. Friday, August 16, 2013. less

LaRee Harrell, (cq) a second year teacher at Somerset Elementary School teaching 4th grade this year, looks through books as she sets up her in-classroom library. Somerset ISD has implemented a revolutionary ... more

Photo: San Antonio Express-News

Major teacher evaluation, pay reform come to Bexar County

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One local school district is revolutionizing how it evaluates and pays teachers, including student test scores in its decisions — a practice that has provoked intense debate among education policymakers.

Somerset Independent School District, with nearly 4,000 students in south Bexar County, is discarding the teacher evaluation format most Texas districts use and adopting a more rigorous model tied to compensation this school year.

The district will partly use students' test scores, basing 50 percent of an educator's final score on how students progress throughout the school year on standardized tests and the remaining 50 percent based mostly on four classroom observations by administrators and peers.

Administrators use those evaluations in determining raises, and eventually figure them into contract considerations.

It eliminates the teacher pay scale fiercely protected by teacher groups, which was the target of legislative action this year.

Somerset's model is unique among local districts and goes beyond what most in Texas have done with “pay for performance” incentives.

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Instead of awarding bonuses to educators for high marks on a more rigorous evaluation, it bases their raises on it, which could be as much as 8 percent. Most districts do 1 percent to 4 percent annually.

The district set aside $1 million to fund the program's expansion. Teachers will have to wait until December 2014 to see pay increases for results in the coming school year.

The plan has glided through several approvals-by-vote from teachers, administration and the Somerset school board. Usually teacher opposition blocks similar reforms, and laws mandating such changes have failed to pass.

“We knew we had to have buy-in and not seem like a top-down decision,” said Somerset Superintendent Saul Hinojosa. “Teachers want to feel like they have a voice in the process, and most really do want to find new ways to improve at any stage in their career.”

There is also plenty of opposition to ideas like Somerset's.

Texas' four major teacher groups don't generally support “pay for performance” plans. They say it adds pressure to “teach to the test” and could, at worst, result in cheating — seen more often in states with high-stakes testing.

Reforms similar to Somerset's haven't found footing in Texas, although Dallas and Houston ISDs are experimenting with it.

The state previously employed the District Awards for Teacher Excellence program, or DATE, which provided pay incentives for teachers based heavily on test scores. Its funding was mostly gutted in 2011 by budget cuts. An external academic study showed that schools where DATE was used saw lower turnover among teachers and slight jump in their test scores but stressed those numbers weren't a dramatic boost.

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In San Antonio, two other districts, Judson and Southside, have experimented with the format Somerset is using, known as TAP, or Teacher Advancement Program, but haven't been able to get the model embraced by teachers district-wide. Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD may possibly adopt some of Somerset's model, but no other districts have indicated interest.

Somerset officials say they received broad support because of how they approached implementing their “pay for performance” model — slowly, one campus at a time, over several years to see results and getting at least 50 percent of their teachers to sign on.

They say it's working.

About five years ago, Somerset's sole middle school campus was struggling to keep up its scores and was rated “academically unacceptable” by the state.

After getting a DATE grant, administration and junior high staff agreed to use the TAP format, which would scrap the model that most districts use known as PDAS, or Professional Development Appraisal System. Last year, they expanded using TAP to their high school, also rated as academically unacceptable.

“I think we felt like we didn't have much of a choice as we knew we needed to try something new to figure out how to improve the situation,” said Shannon Boyd, Somerset's former junior high principal, now overseeing the district's TAP implementation.

This month, Somerset teachers felt vindicated when the state's new accountability ratings were released, based on the more rigorous state test, the STAAR, or State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.

Somerset Junior High is no longer academically unacceptable, and earned a distinction for showing the most progress among its peers. Its high school also shed its unacceptable rating to meet the state standard.

Somerset Junior High's Wesley Thompson, a fifth-year teacher, saw a jump in his students' scores. The eighth-grade math teacher said last school year that 30 of his students were failing the test when they came in. By year's end, 27 were passing.

Thompson said the TAP rubric was more comprehensive and gave him better insight to improve his teaching, as he gets more classroom observations and feedback than with PDAS, which is usually based on one 45-minute classroom visit every one to five years depending on a teacher's level of experience.

“The emphasis on testing is there without TAP, so this helps us better understand how to improve,” he said. “We have to learn to get over our fear of the test.”

TAP will be expanded to Somerset's four other campuses, three of which are failing to meet state standards, and the district hopes they can replicate past results.

Somerset's new system also hopes to tackle turnover, which used to be higher in the district, especially at the failing campuses, but decreased at the two campuses where TAP was used. “We can't attribute everything to TAP, but it seems to be a factor in our success,” said Ismael Perez, a Somerset seventh grade history teacher, adding that the district is in good general health financially and politically among its leadership and board.